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Preface: The following is what used to be termed a “struggle paper,” i.e., a paper presented as an argument for a position. It is not presented as a final position, however. It is, instead, inspired by the content of the February Left Strategies web discussion on the labor movement. This paper does not try to present the ideal tactics or all elements of strategy. It does, however, attempt to identify–for purposes of discussion–issues and concepts for consideration in the development of a full-blown left labor strategy. Feedback is welcomed.

(1)The era of neo-liberal globalization has unsettled the labor/capital relationship in the capitalist world, particularly in the advanced capitalist world. It has brought to an end the period of the Welfare State and has replaced it with an all-out war of capital against labor. To put it another way, it has introduced into the global North much of what has been transpiring in the global South since the days of colonialism.

(2)Within global capitalism there are some major changes that have been underway. The dominant forces are represented by what Egyptian theorist Samir Amin has entitled the “Triad,” that is, the USA, European Union and Japan. The principal enforcement arm of the Triad is that of the USA, sometimes acting in concert with other imperial powers. The Triad finds itself sometimes at odds with and other times in sync with the countries associated with the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). Yet even where there is contention, it does not match that which was a major feature of the international picture in the first half of the 20th century when the world was divided into distinct empires based in Europe, Japan and the United States.

(3)There are indications of the development of a transnational capitalist class, but such a class, though at this point largely limited regionally, has no state apparatus through which it is operating. There is, however, an immense level of cooperation between and among the global capitalist classes, particularly with regard to their relationship to global labor and efforts at limiting national sovereignty. [Note: By “national sovereignty” we are not referencing independence struggles of the past, but rather efforts by existing independent nation-states to actually operate outside of a neo-colonial and neo-liberal framework.]

(4)There have been major shifts in the nature of work and the nature of the working class over the last 40+ years. This has been the result of several factors, including, new technologies, global migration patterns, and the ideology and practices that accompanies neo-liberalism. With the breakdown of the Welfare State, there has also been the slow but steady demise of “eternal employment” within the global North, whereby a worker could assume that a job existed for all or most of their life. Companies have cut workforces to a core segment and the process of “contingent labor” has been introduced. This has meant that the periphery of most workforces are part-time, temporary and contract labor which largely corresponds to the notion of “just-in-time” production. It has also meant the growth of the structurally unemployed and a proletarianization of many professions.

(5)An additional feature of work and the working class has been the forcing down or back to the worker the various tasks and responsibilities that had, hitherto, been handled by the State or by full-time labor in the private sector (e.g., bank tellers). By way of example, people are expected to pump their own fuel, package their own groceries, etc., usually at their own expense or with the possibility of minor contributions from the State (or minor reductions in certain costs when it comes to the private sector).

(6)The reorganization of work has been accompanied by and frequently carried out through an attack on organized labor. In the USA organized labor was completely unprepared for this assault, largely because it believed that through purging the Left in the 1940s, that they had secured a place at the table of mainstream society. That turned out to be a fallacy.

(7)As the living standard has declined and organized labor has been attacked, the political Right has worked to enhance right-wing populism as an expression of popular discontent aimed, however, at segments of the working class and/or specific ethnic groups and women. Right-wing populism has come to be associated with acceptance of the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor/working class/etc., all of which acts as a racial code in order to neutralize white opposition to the assault on the Welfare State.

(8)In the absence of a coherent, visionary and 21st century approach to strategy, tactics and organization on the part of organized Labor, different forms of organization have emerged in various segments of the working class. This has especially included the advent of worker centers and what is sometimes referenced as “alt-labor” among immigrants and other excluded or marginalized sectors of the working class.

(9)The pauperization of much of the working class has resulted in fights around survival. This can include housing, jobs, healthcare, education, etc., which means that the targets of such struggles—when led by progressives—are frequently the State.[1] Yet, as the State cries ‘poor’, i.e., that it is out of money, much of the population has found itself believing that their demands cannot be met by the State. This has resulted in various responses, some of which are very reactionary, e.g., crime, some very individual focused, e.g., informal economy, and some collective, e.g., mass struggle, cooperatives. It has also presented a major strategic and organizational challenge to organized labor which, while having historically placed various demands on the State, has rarely found itself at odds with the State (on fundamentals).

(10)The net result of this situation is that progressive and left organizing within the working class finds itself operating on two separate, though related, battlefields. There are community-based struggles that range from efforts against the State to various self-help (cooperative) efforts. In those struggles there is a survival or social service side that must be considered, reminiscent of the “survival programs” that the Black Panther Party promoted in the late 1960s/early 1970s [e.g., free breakfast programs; sickle cell testing]. There are dangers and opportunities associated with this work. Survival programs can become an end in themselves, rather than a means to both service and reach a broad, popular base. On the other hand, as seen in the work of groups such as Sinn Fein (in Northern Ireland), such programs can be a component of the actual base-building that the Left needs to conduct, e.g., the anti-heroin efforts led by Sinn Fein in Dublin in the late 1980s.

(11)The other battlefield is in the context of the world of work. Work, however, is not to be understood as only formal and full-time. It includes those efforts, both formal and informal, to survive and in which individuals sell their labor power. In some cases, individuals may be offering services for compensation through the informal sector in order to survive. As a result, such individuals may not see themselves as workers but may, instead, see themselves as aspiring petty bourgeois. In other cases, they may see themselves as simply trying to survive. Nevertheless, the struggle in the world of work revolves largely around the struggle with the employer, whether that employer is the State or the employer is a private or semi-private entity. In this environment different forms of organization have emerged over time and will continue to do so. This includes traditional trade unions, but also workers associations. Where, as a result of neo-liberal policies, workers have been ‘transitioned’ into the status of ‘contractors,’ they may not legally have the right to unionize, but–as demonstrated by the NY Taxi Workers Alliance–they can form de facto unions that, in many respects, can operate much like a union even if they are not permitted to engage in collective bargaining.

(12)The structure of worker organization follows (a) function, (b) the nature of the industry, (c) ideological orientation and objectives. In other words, there is not one or other structure of worker organization that is ‘ideal.’ Rather, the structure must be determined by a combination of an assessment of the actual situation as well as a clarification of the goals of the organization of that specific sector of workers. It is in this latter sense that ideology is very important. The nature of the industry, it should be added, can have a profound impact on the consciousness of workers. If a set of workers have an identity as nurses, for instance, that may override the fact that they exist in a larger healthcare industry. This identity, therefore, becomes a site for ideological struggle, including the specific resolution of the objective of said organizing.

(13)Community-based workers struggles are as legitimate as any other form of worker struggles. They may be directly aimed at the State, but they can also be aimed at private capital (or both). In community struggles, however, class identity may be submerged by neighborhood, racial/ethnic, or gender identity. This means that a specific population engaged in struggles that are objectively worker struggles against capital (or against the capital-dominated State) may not see themselves as being involved in a “worker’s struggle” since the prevailing definition of “worker struggles” are those struggles that relate directly to employment. This is a challenge for the Left, a challenge frequently ignored.

(14)The right to collective bargaining is under severe attack throughout the capitalist world, but particularly in the USA. Any suggestion that workers should turn away from collective bargaining because it is lost, is misplaced. The challenge is that the forms of collective bargaining must change, recognizing that certain sectors of the workforce are not legally permitted to engage in such efforts. Thus, collective bargaining may have to take more informal channels. The fast food strikes, for instance, regardless of certain conceptual weaknesses, are an intriguing way to engage in city-wide ‘bargaining’ that goes beyond any one particular employer. In other words, city-wide standards can be established. The Taxi Workers in NYC have worked to build up a framework along such lines.

(15)In the South, and increasingly everything south of the Canadian border, workers have been falling victim to attacks on collective bargaining and the right to organization in the public sector. Responding to these attacks must be centered first and foremost on the essential need for a public sector in a civilized society, followed by the right of workers to have collective bargaining in the public sector. The message of organized workers in the public sector must be a message that focuses on saving and changing the public sector in order to serve the public. When the unions are seen as champions of pro-people reforms in the public sector, they will tend to gain popular support (e.g., the Chicago Teacher’s strike).

(16)The entire process of organizing has encountered significant challenges over the last twenty years. The atomization of life along with the growth of electronic communications processes has led to more indirect interaction between human beings. This tendency is toxic and anti-social. Nevertheless it has meant that it is often difficult to have face to face meetings and difficult to encourage 1:1 organizing and activism. Ironically the political Right seems to be far better at this than the progressives and Left. That said, the process of organizing must appeal to what Gapasin and others reference as “cultures of solidarity.” There must be efforts to build community. This is true whether one is organizing workers in communities or workplaces. Labor organizations need to create cultural wings (note: actually re-create since this was frequently done in the past), reading groups, sports clubs, food cooperatives and other means for human beings to see one another and interact. It is in this process that creative tactics for mobilization and pressure will more than likely arise from among the workers themselves. Labor organizations need to be learning centers, i.e., they need to be loci of education where workers share their knowledge and gain new knowledge. They need to also be centers for the learning of democracy. Democracy is not only the formality of elected leadership but the process of making decisions and building power.

(17)Outside of the labor organizations themselves, building power involves the creation of strategic alliances that share a common goal in power. Organized labor in the USA has largely accepted that it is not only on the defensive but must remain on the defensive. This is a sure way to enter oblivion. Instead, a theory of the counter-offensive must be advanced. This necessitates the creation of a new ‘identity’ for the oppressed and disenfranchised, and taking the lead in the work towards such an identity is a critical task for the political Left. We must recognize that in building this ‘new identity,’ not all segments of the oppressed will accept this direction. There will be tugs and pulls towards narrow self-interest and other reactionary approaches.

(18)A discussion of labor is not complete without examining the question of the unemployed and underemployed. Changes in the process of work, with technology and neo-liberal reorganization, has meant that there has been an uneven but actual growth in the structural unemployed. This references the ‘redundant’ sections of the workforce. Entire cities fall into this category, e.g., East St. Louis, and segments of cities and counties. In the major cities, however, we are witnessing a racial and class cleansing. Thus, sections of cities that were at one point ‘reserved’ for the poor are now being cleansed and the poor are being driven to outer regions. While there has been some work among the unemployed and underemployed over the years, e.g., the work of the Philadelphia Unemployed Project, and more recently, some organizations associated with the Right to the City Alliance, organized labor has all but abandoned the unemployed and underemployed, except most recently with some of the retail organizing (e.g., UFCW’s work around Walmart and the SEIU work around fast food). There are some creative efforts among the unemployed in Northeast Indiana, but this is the exception that proves the rule. It has been very difficult to gain foundation support for unemployed/underemployed organizing. This sector is largely written off an impossible to organize. Yet the key to organizing the unemployed is a combination of social service delivery, mass action, a vision of where and how jobs can be found (or created), and a cadre of dedicated activists who will anchor this work. The unemployed organizing of the 1930s, for instance, was not the result of spontaneous efforts but was rooted in the work of the CPUSA, socialists, Muste-ites and Trotskyists. In each case, cadre were dedicated to this work. This is an essential lesson. Given the nature of the sector, there will be tremendous turnover within the mass base.

(19)There is a special an essential role for the Left in this work. While there remain significant unanswered questions, e.g., the form and nature of national Left organization in the USA, it is the case that the niche that the Left must fill is at least partially clear. This includes:

Worldview: More than a vision of the future, offering and teaching a worldview or framework through which workers can understand and, thereby, change reality is essential. Too many efforts rely on mobilization and inspiration as a means of sustaining our efforts. Worldview and framework are really at the core of sustaining and building our work. This means helping people to understand the nature of the system, the nature of the enemy, the nature and scope of our allies and potential allies, and the possible directions we can pursue towards victory (or victories).

Social justice objectives: Labor organization, whether community-based or workplace based, must seek to establish objectives that are rooted in a conception of social and economic justice. Alinskyism in both community-based and workplace-based organizing, along with Gompers-ism in organized labor, has downplayed the broader notion of social justice, except in an abstract rhetorical sense. The objectives of our work must be transformational in two senses. First, the aim of the steady transformation of society. For those of us on the Left, that means ultimately confronting the Gorgon of capitalism. Second, the transformation of the masses who are involved in the larger struggle. In both cases this means establishing genuine class consciousness that is beyond a consciousness of trade unionism or even economic justice alone. It is, to borrow from the old man, the notion of the workers recognizing that they need to be the advocates for all of the oppressed, dispossessed, disenfranchised, etc. In the current era the matter of social justice must include the challenge of the environment and the survival of life on this planet. This challenge, we should note, will frequently pit the matter of jobs against the environment. The Left cannot fear this challenge and must recognize that this contradiction must be addressed directly. Addressing it is integrally linked to articulating the need for a different economy, i.e., that in the last instance, capitalism is antithetical to the future of humanity.

The Left must lead in struggling against sectorial exclusivity. In the context of organized labor this can include the struggle against narrow trade or craft mentality. But this can also be a geographic matter where we are confronted with regional tensions frequently played upon by right-wing populists.

(20)The evolution of the US working class has also involved a significant shift racially, ethnically and gender-wise over the last 50 years. The response within organized labor, community-based organizations, and the Left has been uneven. Organized labor has increasingly recognized the strategic significance of Latino and Asian migrants and, in some cases, has entered into special efforts to organize and support such populations. At the same time, organized labor refuses to recognize the continued significance of the Black working class and African Americans generally. Organized labor has no strategy that is particularly focused on the Black working class. To some extent elements of this have also arisen in community-based organizing efforts. Many of the efforts to organize immigrants, for instance, have paid little to no attention to the construction of alliances with African Americans. The result has been an increase in tension as the Black working class has been economically marginalized and opportunities for economic growth denied. The workforce has additionally shifted dramatically at the level of gender. This has largely not translated into labor organizations–be they workplace-based or community-based–that are either majority female or have a significant female constituency, becoming “women’s organizations.” The ‘voice’ of women continues to be largely organizations and individuals rooted in the middle strata. In the cases of race, ethnicity and gender it is the Left and only the Left that has the historic responsibility to engage in efforts that can be understood as rooted in transformation and the battle for consistent democracy. This is not a struggle by a sector or for an interest group. It is a battle that is linked to the creation of a new identity among/within the oppressed. Alinskyists and Gompers-ists attempt to create such an identity by denying the significance of racist oppression, national oppression, gender oppression, homophobia, etc., and seeking, instead, some sort of idealistic unity at the level of economics or common demands. The Left must shatter such a framework and insist on a transformational approach aimed not only at the destruction of these various forms of oppression, but the construction of a popular, democratic bloc that can win and hold power. A bloc, by the way, that will ultimately need to take on the question of empire, but we shall leave that subject for a future paper.

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[1] Such struggles are not always led by progressives, however. When led by the Right they can sometimes take on the State, but with the objective of eliminating another segment of the population or privileging one segment over another. An example of this is the notion of “not in my backyard” when it comes to environmental issues, whereby on neighborhood seeks to take action to protect itself at the cost of another neighborhood.

This is a really important question and is as relevant here in Australia as much of the very fine work in Bill’s originating theses. However, in my view, it does mean a collective study of strategy in theory and in simultaneous ongoing application in practice. This must include its connected relationship with BIll’s “world view” thesis and the evolving vision of the alternative to capitalism.
Strategy has several elements of course, including tactics and leadership. There is the critical issue of how democracy is defined and fits in the development of strategy. Other elements include situation analysis, programme, trajectory, culmination etc.
We are trying to start a discussion about this in Australia, to bring more purpose, coherence and direction to the manifold and fragmented actions and campaigns against the effects of the system that bears down upon us all.
For now though, I recommend a close study of the origins and processes of the ANCs Freedom Charter, all of those years ago.

In your struggle paper, Toward the Development of Left Labor Strategy, by Bill Fletcher, the 20 points he raised seemed pretty overwhelming. In general, I got the impression that each one of these problems that the working class faces in the ever changing environment of global capitalism has dire consequences. In truth, they are all important and they all must be addressed, to become part of a mighty effort to fight back. I also feel a helplessness when I look around for leadership and only fined scattered sectarian efforts to build small enclave to defend till the death of the Left. Among the many struggles, I feel we need to find a Main Contradiction, The one struggle that will move all the other struggles ahead with it. And if I had to choose which struggle to work to win it would be to establish a national Leftist organization that includes all form of socialist, working on the same struggle. To form an American Labor Party, with a base in democratic trade unionism and community based organizing. The Main Contradiction is that we have no national presence and no base among the working class. Without these no war can be waged and no long term victories secured. We need a national network and if one party isn’t big enough then let’s all join an umbrella organization to amplify our voices and our resources.

Reblogged this on Don Sutherland's Blog and commented:
I am very interested to see where discussion about these theses heads? It is very much about the situation in the USA, but I know that several concepts that are addressed are directly or indirectly relevant here in Australia.
The first thesis about “Worldview” is a critical and challenging one, and much neglected in recent decades. What are the ingredients of a critical world view that helps to understand and act in all spheres if life to defeat exploitation of both humans and nature. How important is a 21st century understanding of exploitation inside this world view? Very important in my view, but nowadays very badly comprehended across the Australian left.
The most serious problem with the theses as they currently stand is the weak attention to strategy, its dynamic interplay with “world view” and actually existing struggles against 21st century capitalism, and the collective effort to envision a real and fundamental alternative to where we are being carried by 21 st century capitalism. But more of that in a separate article to come. But, for now: a close study of the processes and content of the ANCs Freedom Charter all those years ago is very worthwhile.